Across the street from a bowling alley in Toulouse, a French scientist unlocks the passageway to a hidden refrigerated laboratory where a centuries-old blight is about to be wiped up.
"Show him Project Propec," says Cedric Cabanes, president of Agronutrition SAS, a boutique fertilizer company with annual sales of $26 million, which may be on the cusp of transforming a global industry that plowed 163.7 million metric tons of nutritional muck into the soil last year. The metal door swings open and the foul aroma of the excremental experiment inside the chamber overwhelms the possibility of accurate visual observation.
"What we have here is endomycorrhiza, the molecular detoxifying mechanism for a diffusive airborne substance with a 100-meter radius that provokes an immediate intestinal ejection at a precise position," microbiologist Hicham Ferhout says, thumping shut the steel door. "In layman terms, we've finally discovered how to make a dog s- in a specific spot, disinfect the deposit and convert it into environmentally friendly energy or fertilizer. I have to think like a dog."
The origin of feces is no laughing matter in France, where pedestrians can come upon little piles of dog poop on pavements in even the most fashionable of streets in cities from Paris to Bordeaux. France has 8.8 million dogs, according to the Societe de Protection des Animaux. At an average of 22 pounds a year each, they produce about 194 million pounds of stools, some in public spaces, costing the country millions to clean up, according to Toulouse Deputy Mayor Jean-Michel Fabre.
For the 400,000 residents of Toulouse, says Fabre, who's also a veterinarian, the postcard-perfect southwestern town is otherwise soiled by 50,000 dogs that step outside to leave tons of their excrement annually.
"Toulouse has industrial quantities to offer," says the 50-year-old Fabre.